Ernst Junger Research Articles

Э. ЮНГЕР И УТВЕРЖДЕНИЕ НАЦИСТСКОГО ПРАВИТЕЛЬСТВА: СТРАТЕГИЯ ВЫЖИВАНИЯ ИНТЕЛЛЕКТУАЛА В ГОДЫ НАЦИСТСКОГО ГОСПОДСТВА

The article discusses the issues of developing a strategy of behavior and survival of an intellectual in the conditions of the Nazi dictatorship on the example of the German conservative thinker and writer Ernst Junger. The formation of the Nazi government in January 1933 marked the end of the deep crisis of the Weimar Republic in the early 1930s. As a result of the formation of Hitler's Nazi-conservative coalition cabinet in the German state, the process of structural transformation of the state towards the Fuhrer state, assuming total control and management of the entire life of society, began. Under these conditions, the existence of an intellectual required a choice between conformity and nonconformism. The example of Ernst Junger, a well-known nationalist publicist, shows how non-trivial the ways of existence of a thinker can be in the conditions of the beginning regulation of public life and repression against opposition forces and ideas.

Konserwatywna konceptualizacja. O wczesnej twórczości Szczepana Twardocha

Conservative conceptualization. On the early works of Szczepan Twardoch The article attempts to synthesize the conservative views of Szczepan Twardoch from the early period of his work and to present their sources as well as the reasons for the later, radical change. The writer was inspired by conservative thinkers during his studies, mainly in the context of the French Revolution history. Under their influence, he began to contest development direction of the European civilization. His works from this period contain themes of the end of civilization, the fall of Christianity, and the struggle to preserve the cultural status quo. He also referenced the current political situation in Poland and the writers and philosophers representing a similar line of thought, primarily Joseph de Maistre and Ernst Junger. Intellectual maturing and the related aversion to dogmatism caused him to reject conservative views.

ПОЛЕМИКА ЭРНСТА ЮНГЕРА С НАЦИОНАЛ-СОЦИАЛИЗМОМ В ГОДЫ ВЕЙМАРСКОЙ РЕСПУБЛИКИ

The article examines the problems of political journalism of the German right in the years of the Weimar Republic as an example of the analysis of the place, interpretation and significance of the Jewish question in the creative heritage of Ernst Junger. In the conditions of post-war Germany, anti-Semitism acquired a political sound due to the fact that a significant percentage of German Jews were represented in the revolutionary government, the Social Democratic and radical left parties, who turned into the face of the Weimar Republic. Antisemitismus became an important domestic political component of the struggle against the Weimar political system, which allowed reducing political controversy to racial and national components. The unity and difference between the political journalism of the Nazis and E. Junger as the leader of the "new nationalism" is analyzed. The place of the Jewish question as a political problem is considered in the context of the nationalist ideas of the Weimar right. The study of the peculiarities of the understanding of Jewry in the ideas of E. Junger and its difference from the Nazi interpretation is being carried out. The desire of National Socialism to turn anti-Semitism into one of the structural components of ideology and political journalism made it possible to group political opponents into a single racially defined whole and concentrate the entire range of political means of struggle against it. The political divergence of E. Junger and National Socialism was based in addition to political divergences and on the fact that the place of the Jewish question in his ideas did not occupy any significant place, not in terms of ideological or personal.

"Changing the Image" of Gods, Religion and theology in Ernst Junger's Optics

The article is devoted to a little–studied topic in Russian humanities – the issue of "changing the image" [1] of gods, religion and theology in the works of the German writer and thinker Ernst Junger (1895 - 1998). In Russia, this author is better known as one of the ideologists of the conservative revolution. However, in the post-war years, E. Junger began to pay considerable attention to issues of religion and the church. And this is not by chance. E. Junger believed that in a new technologized society, the essence of a person is suppressed, he ceases to feel the true values of life, transferring them to external ones. According to the writer, it is possible to find a way out of this situation only by relying on the help of three great forces: art, philosophy and theology. However, by assigning such an important mission to them, E. Junger makes a fundamental reservation – the old religions and churches based on faith can only fight the consequences of the Enlightenment project today. The struggle against the "chimeras" and Leviathans of modernity is only possible for new forms of spiritual life and new spiritual practices that bring a person closer to himself, and which we define as transcendence. Starting with "Going into the Forest", through "Heliopolis" and "Eumeswil", E. Junger gradually finds their "image". According to the writer, he and, consequently, the "image" of the new world will depend entirely on the quality of human freedom. Then the "divine, desiring to appear in the highest degree of spirituality" will no longer need masks of animals and people. The new theology will be distinguished by a new quality of language in which a person can talk about the gods – poetry is such for E. Junger. In this sense, the work of the "last knight" is characterized by the highest humanistic pathos, and he himself is undoubtedly the "prophet" of another Reformation.

Vilken svensk författare motsvarar Knut Hamsun och Örnulf Tigerstedt?

”Vilken svensk författare motsvarar Japans Yukio Mishima, Tysklands Ernst Jünger och Frankrikes Louis-Ferdinand Céline?”, frågar en svensk debattör och forskare i en artikel 2016. Till dessa om än famösa så välkända namn adderar frågeställaren Norges Knut Hamsun respektive Finlands Örnulf Tigerstedt. Med denna fråga som utgångspunkt granskas och prövas i artikeln såväl nazistiska partiledare och nazistanhängare som svenska nationalpoeter. Vilka diktare är att betrakta som nazistiska och vilka har associerats med nazismen på felaktiga grunder? Och var alla nazistiska diktare män? I nutid med yttringar av vad som betecknats som ultranationalism och populism i ytterlighetsrörelser, till sin spets dragna i form av nynazism, är det viktigare än någonsin att göra upp med det nazistiska förflutna och utreda hur nazismen gestaltades i den nazistiska kampdikten, såväl i den svenska som i den nordiska.

The line. Notes on nihilism in the epistolary exchange between Ernst Jünger and Martin Heidegger

En la primera mitad de los años cincuenta del siglo pasado se dio un intercambio epistolar entre Martin Heidegger y Ernst Jünger que fue el análisis más profundo del nihilismo como diagnóstico de nuestra época. Jünger plantea la superación del nihilismo mientras que Heidegger piensa que el nihilismo es el proceso por el que la verdad del Ser se ha ocultado, olvidando su esencia. Para poder superar el nihilismo debe antes ser comprendido en su esencia como acontecimiento que pertenece a la historia del Ser, en las aperturas epocales de la metafísica.

Heideggerio technikos filosofijos formavimosi kontekstas: Cassireris, Jüngeris, Spengleris

[straipsnis ir santrauka lietuvių kalba; santrauka anglų kalba] Straipsnyje pristatomas svarbių M. Heideggerio technikos filosofijos elementų formavimosi kontekstas tarpukario Vokietijos autorių tekstuose. Aptariamos paralelės tarp Heideggerio ir E. Cassirerio, E. Jüngerio bei O. Spenglerio industrializacijos proceso filosofinių apmąstymų. Nagrinėjant šių mąstytojų moderniosios technikos koncepcijų ryšius išryškėja, kaip vystėsi Heideggerio tekstams būdinga industrializacijos proceso artikuliacija bei jo technikos filosofijai svarbi problematika, liečianti planetarinį moderniosios technikos išplitimą ir poveikį bei technikos, kaip Vakarų ir šiuolaikinės žmonijos apskritai lemties, sampratą.

Ernst Jünger

O artigo visa a uma análise comparativa das obras de Ernst Jünger O trabalhador e Nos penhascos de mármore. O objetivo é demonstrar que o conservadorismo do autor abrange essas duas obras, que representam fases distintas: a primeira marcada a busca pela junção do mecânico e do orgânico através do realismo heroico, e a segunda pela busca por uma Ordem transcendente. Assim, se houve, por um lado, uma mudança política do autor, que se afasta definitivamente do horizonte nazista através do caráter alegórico de Nos penhascos de mármore, por outro lado, sua obra continua ligada a uma ênfase aristocrática e conservadora numa Ordem que determina a vida. Nesse sentido, buscamos as similaridades entre figuras e imagens delineadas pelo autor em O trabalhador, Nos penhascos de mármore, assim como outras obras do período do entreguerras.

Эрнст Юнгер и военные переживания поколения Великой войны

Эрнст Юнгер и военные переживания поколения Великой войны

A LITERATURA DE PARENTESCO IDEOLÓGICO COM O NAZISMO.

Our contribution aims at a reflection on one of the literary aspects present in the context of the Weimar Republic and, specifically, the so-called Third Reich: the literature of ideological proximity with Nazism. For this, we chose the following works, which will be the object of analysis of the present study: Ernst Junger’s In Stahlgewittern (1920; Storm of Steel ), Ina Seidel’s Das Wunschkind (1930; The Wanted Child ), and Hans Grimm’s Volk ohne Raum (1926, Nation without Space . While Ernst Junger figures as a representative of writers who, out of the battlefields of World War I, apologized for war, the writer Ina Seidel presents an image of the woman “in the service of the nation”. In turn, Hans Grimm conveys with his work a vision not only colonialist, but also based on the notion of “living space” ( Lebensraum ), one of the dorsal columns of Nazi ideology. Although Junger, Seidel and Grimm were antagonists of Nazism, positioning themselves far or even critically against the regime, no doubt in discursive terms, their works helped pave the way for the rise of Nazism.

I mondi simultanei di Ernst Jünger: su Avvicinamenti e Heliopolis

Ernst Junger’s simultaneous worlds. On Annaherungen and HeliopolisIn this paper two of Junger’s post-war writings (Heliopolis, 1949; Annaherungen,1970) are examined in order to assess their inner consistencyin relation to one of the key-concepts of Junger’s philosophicalsystem, the notion of ‘elementary’. Annaherungen is shown to restupon a vision of the Dionysian root of the aesthetic experience – anapproach which is easily traced back to its main forerunner, FriedrichNietzsche: art is the only human activity which is capable to reflectan image of the ‘elementary’, since its unfailing obscurity providesaccess to otherwise unattainable levels of experience. This explicitstance of Annaherungen is shown to correspond to and clarify thehidden structure of Heliopolis, whose apparent obscurity is to be understoodas an effect of the transfiguring power of a paradis artificiel.This is a space where the use of drugs enforces the laws of the‘elementary’, providing the only means of contrasting and possiblysurpassing contemporary nihilism.

ЭКЗИСТЕНЦИАЛИСТСКИЕ МОТИВЫ В РОМАНЕ ЭРНСТА ЮНГЕРА «В СТАЛЬНЫХ ГРОЗАХ»

The interpretation of Ernst Junger’s novel Storm of Steel offered here is aimed at an existentialist reading of the book, viewing it, first and foremost, as a special artistic space meeting the stylistic demands of Junger as a writer. Thus, the formal characteristics of the novel prevail over its shocking content. Such a way of reading this Junger’s work is not popular among Russian scholars studying the writer, for they mostly orient at exploring the ideological and sociological aspects of the book. It seems that Storm of Steel constitutes a special case of using proto-existentialist ideas when describing the phenomenon of war and at the same time presenting some basic existentialist notions, such as ‘anxiety’ (Angst) of Soren Kierkegaard; ‘thrownness’ (Geworfenheit), ‘fright’ (Entsetzen) and ‘nothing’ (Nichts) of Martin Heidegger; ‘limit situation’ (Grenzsituation) and ‘existence enlightenment’ (Existenzerhellung) of Karl Jaspers. Junger’s book can be called unique for it renders a kind of existentialist experience not basing on the matching philosophical apparatus (non-existent at the time of writing Storm of Steel ). Thus, Junger anticipates the main philosophical discoveries of the 20 th century and joins the German version of existentialism. Junger’s writing method reveals the core point of existentialist thinking, when Being opens itself to a human as an existentialist experience, not in an act of rational realizing its meaning, but in view of death, when the world appears both uncanny and dangerous. Junger’s narrator experiences this when fighting, on the scout, getting close to nature when a battle stops. Junger pays attention not only to what man feels, but to the environment, both natural and artificial, consisting of the ruined items of everyday bourgeois life, mixed chaotically with arms. Thus, the writer stresses the need to seek for the new foundations of defining the role of a human in the 20th century reality.

Tourism and Erotic Imaginaries in Wartime Paris: French and Germans during the Occupation, 1940-1944

This essay focuses on the intersections of tourism, war, and erotics in occupied Paris during the Second World War. Too frequently, tourism is considered a only peacetime phenomenon. War, however, can produce its own tourism, as was true of German soldiers in occupied Paris during the Second World War. A specially designated unit of the Wehrmacht arranged tours for thousands of its young soldiers, many of whom had never before left their native towns and villages. Their time in Paris, a city with an already established imaginary of sensuality, opened previously undreamed of possibilities for sexual adventures both imagined and real. Although erotic imaginaries can be difficult for the historian to trace, some idea of them is provided in the diaries of Ernst Junger, a well-known German officer and writer, who while stationed in Paris toured the city and seems to have had at least a few sexual encounters with local women along the way. The many relationships between German soldiers and Frenchwomen produced tens of thousands of children born during the Occupation. Other soldiers consorted with streetwalkers or visited brothels, carefully regulated by the German authorities. Erotic behavior and imaginaries clearly reflected the power imbalances of the time.With the 1944 liberation of France, Allied soldiers replaced the Germans but the power imbalances remained and the erotic tourism continued. The Liberation also brought accusations against “horizontal collaborators,” or Frenchwomen accused of having had sexual relations with the Germans. Many of those accused were paraded with their heads shaven or worse in French town and cities, reflecting a sense of emasculation in postwar France. In these many ways, erotics was linked to tourism and war. This essay surveys some of the many expressions of erotic feeling in occupied Paris. Addressing the complex intersections of tourism, war, and erotics, it seeks to encourage further research in their linkages.

Inkongruente Bilder. Ernst Jüngers Pferde

Photobooks played a central role in Weimar Germany’s memory culture. They served as a medium for preserving and archiving, illustrating and communicating recollections of WW I. In the politicized climate of the Weimar years, photobooks spoke to distinct memory communities situated at different points on the political spectrum. This article considers the photobooks of Ernst Junger, an important figure in the memory culture of the political right. It focuses on a number of incongruent images in Junger’s Das Antlitz des Weltkrieges : photographs of dead and dying horses that extend the notion of wartime suffering to animals. Because they do not sit easily within the book’s program of a commemoration of the dead, and because they do not fit Junger’s explicitly stated understanding of the War as a crucible of modernization, these images provide the opportunity for a more differentiated consideration of Junger’s contribution to Weimar memorial culture. (SH; in German)

A Primeira Guerra Mundial na lírica expressionista

O objetivo deste artigo é analisar poemas expressionistas cujos autores expressaram, liricamente, suas vivências de guerra como soldados na frente de batalha. Mesmo antes da eclosão da guerra, esta já se prefigurava como uma catástrofe social que, posteriormente, se revelaria em toda a sua virulência. Jovens que vivenciaram o “reino das chamas” e os “labirintos fumegantes da batalha” (Ernst Jünger) encontraram na lírica uma forma apropriada para expressar suas percepções sensoriais sob condições precárias e constante perigo de morte no front. Imagens apocalípticas não eram incomuns. A euforia que predominava também entre os expressionistas com a eclosão da “Grande Guerra” e com a possibilidade de uma transformação social logo se dissipou, à medida que a chamada “guerra de material” revelou-se em toda a sua virulência e horror. Guerra, ódio, miséria, caos, destruição, loucura, violência e morte puderam ser representadas de modo pungente pela estética do Expressionismo.

Nonconformist writing in Nazi Germany: the literature of inner emigration

Studies of literary responses to National Socialism between 1933 and 1945 have largely focused on exiled writers; opposition within Germany and Austria is less well understood. Yet in both countries there were writers who continued to publish imaginative literature that did not conform to Nazi precepts: the authors of the so-called Inner Emigration. They withdrew from the regime and sought to express their nonconformity through camouflaged texts designed to offer sensitized readers encouragement, reassurance, and consolation.This book provides a critical, historically informed reassessment of these writers. It is innovative in scope, in its use of little-known sources, in placing authors and texts in a detailed social and political context, and in analyzing seminal topoi and tropes of oppositional discourse. One of the most extensive studies of the topic in German or English, it provides a state-of-the-art text for literary historians, scholars, and students of German literature, but also, thanks to its accessibility and translation of all material, serves as an introduction for English-speaking readers to this poorly understood group of writers. Two contextualizing chapters are followed by chapters devoted to Werner Bergengruen, Stefan Andres, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Gertrud von le Fort, Reinhold Schneider, Ernst Junger, Ernst Wiechert, and Erika Mitterer.John Klapper is Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham, UK.

La <em>Nephila Maculata</em>. Jünger y la experiencia de la catástrofe

The present work intends to approach the testifying form of Ernst Junger to realize the history with the intention, firstly, of investigating in the sense that has for the German author the experience of the catastrophe, the war and the pain and, secondly, of explaining the constitutive elements of his particular concept of history.

Modern Technology within the Western Theological Imaginary

In this paper, I claim that modern technology possesses certain general ‘onto-formative’ characteristics that indicate that our contemporary technological condition now defies orthodox theoretical forms of comprehension. In the light of this claim, I will propose that any adequate conceptual understanding of modern technics requires a decisive shift of disciplinary register: specifically, towards theology and to the formation of new philosophical paradigms founded upon metaphysically-inspired interpretations of the ‘total significance’ of modern technics. Such theological conceptions, I will argue, emerge from a startling recognition of modern technics’ incipient association with the infinite, the transcendent as well as with its capacity to “bring new worlds into existence”. I attempt this, in the first instance, by drawing upon the work of two major thinkers who I believe paved the way towards just such a theological conception: Martin Heidegger and Ernst Junger. In a non-standard interpretation of their respective philosophies of technology, I will go on to claim that these two thinkers should be viewed as attempting to find a way towards a “radically conservative” revalorisation of ancient theological truths that they believed could provide 20th century modernity with the philosophical groundwork for a new techno-political order that they posited in contrast to a dying Platonic-Christian civilisation. For both of these thinkers a theological understanding of modern technics created the possibility of a new spiritual condition/zeitgeist where the very idea of modern technology is rearticulated as the focal point of a post-Platonic-Christian social imaginary that they believed to be revolutionary in its necessarily destructive relationship to extant historical worlds and their corresponding traditions. By these lights, I suggest, that modern social imaginary can only be con conceived within a new theological synthesis that transcends the Platonic/Christian dichotomy of techne and theoria - of the worker and the philosopher/priest - in a way that allows for the poetic root of both to be revealed in its primal, world-constituting, form. I will conclude with a brief comparison between these ‘pagan’ conceptions of technology and contemporary Christian theological conceptions which have been acutely aware of the highly ambiguous position of modern technics within Christian metaphysical schemes and the need to reform these in the light the manifestly destructive potential of modern forms of technological innovation.

Categories of the impolitical

The notion of the “impolitical” developed in this volume draws its meaning from the exhaustion of modernity’s political categories, which have become incapable of giving voice to any genuinely radical perspective. The impolitical is not the opposite of the political but rather its outer limit: the border from which we might glimpse a trajectory away from all forms of political theology and the depoliticizing tendencies of a completed modernity. The book’s reconstruction of the impolitical lineage—which is anything but uniform—begins with the extreme conclusions reached by Carl Schmitt and Romano Guardini in their reflections on the political and then moves through a series of encounters between several great twentieth-century texts: from Hannah Arendt’s On Revolution to Hermann Broch’s The Death of Virgil, to Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power; from Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots to Georges Bataille’s Sovereignty to Ernst Junger’s An der Zeitmauer. The trail forged by this analysis offers a defiant counterpoint to the modern political lexicon, but at the same time a contribution to our understanding of its categories.

Ernst Junger's Resistance to Modernity

Ernst Junger's Resistance to Modernity